Sports
All Stars: D.C. Aquatics Club
Swimmers from all backgrounds find camaraderie in local group
Tommy Scibilia and Sara Hewitt have balanced career, swimming and competition in the D.C. Aquatics Club. (Photo of Scibilia by Tom Park; photo of Hewitt courtesy of Hewitt)
Two former college club swimmers, one gay and one straight, from the District of Columbia Aquatics Club are featured this week in the ongoing All Star series in the Washington Blade. The LGBT sports community in D.C. has grown to more than 7,000 athletes and has drawn in both gay and straight competitors.
At the urging of his parents, Tommy Scibilia played everything from baseball to volleyball to soccer while he was growing up in Fairax, Va. None of them stuck until he started swimming year around in the eighth grade. He swam all four years in high school and when he committed to attend the University of Virginia, he had a decision to make.
“I chose the club swimming route which is part competitive and part social,” Scibilia says. “I’m glad that I did that because a lot of the varsity swimmers burn out. I still appreciate the sport and want to continue to pursue it.”
Though it may not be as intense as NCAA swimming, college club swimming is filled with athletes looking to challenge themselves. Scibilia attended up to six meets per school year at different schools as well as the Collegiate Club Swimming Championships at Georgia Tech.
After graduating with a master’s degree in urban and environmental planning, Scibilia moved back to the area in 2016 and works as a city planner in Fairfax. One of his new roommates told him about the LGBT-based D.C. Aquatics and he joined a few months later.
Scibilia attended his first meet with his new teammates in Miami in May at the International Gay & Lesbian World Championships. He says the experience could have been intimidating but his teammates and past swimming races helped him feel comfortable.
“It comes back pretty fast when you are up on the blocks again. You don’t lose the spirit of it,” Scibilia says. “I’m a little shy and I wasn’t sure what to expect being new and younger, but everyone was welcoming and really funny.”
Coming up for Scibilia is the D.C. Aquatics-hosted meet in October and plans to attend his first Gay Games in Paris next year. He says the swim meets are a good way to get to know his teammates outside of the regular practice routine.
“I like the age range on D.C. Aquatics. It’s cool to know that people have been swimming on this team for decades,” Scibilia says. “I have a lot to look forward to in the future.”
Sara Hewitt was born in D.C. and grew up in Glen Echo, Md. She swam in the Montgomery County Swim League from ages 5-18 along with swimming on her high school team for four years. While she was attending University of Maryland, she joined the college club team that was formed in her senior year.
After graduation, she was swimming on her own in 2010 at the Tacoma Aquatic Center and spotted D.C. Aquatics across the pool having a butterfly workout.
“I saw them again the next week and went up and asked if I could join,” Hewitt says. “I looked at their website to see if they accepted straight people and it wasn’t a prerequisite to be gay. I was excited about getting a real practice with a team.”
After a couple months of training, Hewitt attended her first meet and during her 100-yard individual medley race, her new teammates stepped forward to cheer her on.
“This is a welcoming group of people and there is so much camaraderie,” Hewitt says. “Safe spaces in sports are important and it’s incredible to be a part of their safe space.”
Hewitt, who works as an engineer, attended her first International Gay & Lesbian World Championships in Honolulu in 2011 and has since been to the championships in Reykjavik, Seattle, Stockholm and Miami.
She also marches every year with her teammates in the Capital Pride parade and next year will mark her first participation in the Gay Games in Paris. The environment continues to feel welcome to her and she shares an experience from the Championships in Miami this past May.
“I lost my goggles in my first race, the 800-meter freestyle, and when I finished the Miami-based timer said, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe you kept swimming.’ The timer in my second race was the boyfriend of the timer in the first race. Both guys ended up cheering for me in all the rest of my races. I am meeting encouraging people that I will see again at future competitions. What a great environment for a swim meet.”
Sports
Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine
Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry strike a pose in memorable Olympics performance
Madonna’s presence is being felt at the Olympic Games in Italy.
Guillaume Cizeron and his rhythm ice dancing partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry of France performed a flawless skate to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Rescue Me” on Monday.
The duo scored an impressive 90.18 for their effort, the best score of the night.
“We’ve been working hard the whole season to get over 90, so it was nice to see the score on the screen,” Fournier Beaudry told Olympics.com. “But first of all, just coming out off the ice, we were very happy about what we delivered and the pleasure we had out there. With the energy of the crowd, it was really amazing.”
Watch the routine on YouTube here.
Italy
Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’
Italy lags behind other European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights
The four Italian advocacy groups behind the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ Pride House hope to use the games to highlight the lack of LGBTQ rights in their country.
Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano organized the Pride House that is located in Milan’s MEET Digital Culture Center. The Washington Blade on Feb. 5 interviewed Pride House Project Manager Joseph Naklé.
Naklé in 2020 founded Peacox Basket Milano, Italy’s only LGBTQ basketball team. He also carried the Olympic torch through Milan shortly before he spoke with the Blade. (“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie last month participated in the torch relay in Feltre, a town in Italy’s Veneto region.)
Naklé said the promotion of LGBTQ rights in Italy is “actually our main objective.”
ILGA-Europe in its Rainbow Map 2025 notes same-sex couples lack full marriage rights in Italy, and the country’s hate crimes law does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Italy does ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, but the country’s nondiscrimination laws do not include gender identity.
ILGA-Europe has made the following recommendations “in order to improve the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people in Italy.”
• Marriage equality for same-sex couples
• Depathologization of trans identities
• Automatic co-parent recognition available for all couples
“We are not really known to be the most openly LGBT-friendly country,” Naklé told the Blade. “That’s why it (Pride House) was really important for the community.”
“We want to use the Olympic games — because there is a big media attention — and we want to use this media attention to raise the voice,” he added.
Naklé noted Pride House will host “talks and roundtables every night” during the games that will focus on a variety of topics that include transgender and nonbinary people in sports and AI. Another will focus on what Naklé described to the Blade as “the importance of political movements now to fight for our rights, especially in places such as Italy or the U.S. where we are going backwards, and not forwards.”
Seven LGBTQ Olympians — Italian swimmer Alex Di Giorgio, Canadian ice dancers Paul Poirier and Kaitlyn Weaver, Canadian figure skater Eric Radford, Spanish figure skater Javier Raya, Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson, and Irish field hockey and cricket player Nikki Symmons — are scheduled to participate in Pride House’s Out and Proud event on Feb. 14.
Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood representatives are expected to speak at Pride House on Feb. 21.
The event will include a screening of Mariano Furlani’s documentary about Pride House and LGBTQ inclusion in sports. The MiX International LGBTQ+ Film and Queer Culture Festival will screen later this year in Milan. Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood is also planning to show the film during the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Naklé also noted Pride House has launched an initiative that allows LGBTQ sports teams to partner with teams whose members are either migrants from African and Islamic countries or people with disabilities.
“The objective is to show that sports is the bridge between these communities,” he said.
Bisexual US skier wins gold
Naklé spoke with the Blade a day before the games opened. The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will close on Feb. 22.
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are competing in the games.
Breezy Johnson, an American alpine skier who identifies as bisexual, on Sunday won a gold medal in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, on the same day helped the U.S. win a gold medal in team figure skating.
Glenn said she received threats on social media after she told reporters during a pre-Olympics press conference that LGBTQ Americans are having a “hard time” with the Trump-Vance administration in the White House. The Associated Press notes Glenn wore a Pride pin on her jacket during Sunday’s medal ceremony.
“I was disappointed because I’ve never had so many people wish me harm before, just for being me and speaking about being decent — human rights and decency,” said Glenn, according to the AP. “So that was really disappointing, and I do think it kind of lowered that excitement for this.”
Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny shares Super Bowl stage with Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga
Puerto Rican activist celebrates half time show
Bad Bunny on Sunday shared the stage with Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.
Martin came out as gay in 2010. Gaga, who headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, is bisexual. Bad Bunny has championed LGBTQ rights in his native Puerto Rico and elsewhere.
“Not only was a sophisticated political statement, but it was a celebration of who we are as Puerto Ricans,” Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the LGBTQ+ Federation of Puerto Rico, told the Washington Blade on Monday. “That includes us as LGBTQ+ people by including a ground-breaking superstar and legend, Ricky Martin singing an anti-colonial anthem and showcasing Young Miko, an up-and-coming star at La Casita. And, of course, having queer icon Lady Gaga sing salsa was the cherry on the top.”
La Casita is a house that Bad Bunny included in his residency in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, last year. He recreated it during the halftime show.
“His performance brought us together as Puerto Ricans, as Latin Americans, as Americans (from the Americas) and as human beings,” said Serrano. “He embraced his own words by showcasing, through his performance, that the ‘only thing more powerful than hate is love.’”
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